Posted on 01/13/2014 4:51:01 PM PST by smokingfrog
Mexico's government on Monday pledged to take control of a violent western state after days of fighting between masked vigilantes and members of one of the country's most powerful drug cartels.
Since late last year, vigilante groups in the state of Michoacan have moved deeper into territory controlled by the Knights Templar cartel and they now are converging on Apatzingan, considered one of gang's main strongholds.
The vigilantes' advance has raised the risk of a bloody urban battle in Apatzingan. Interior Minister Miguel Angel Osorio Chong on Monday urged the vigilante groups to withdraw from the battleground so federal forces could take control.
"Be certain that we will contain the violence in Michoacan," Osorio Chong said at an event in the state capital of Morelia.
President Enrique Pena Nieto, who just ended his first year in office, has sought to shift the public focus away from grinding violence and onto a series of economic reforms he has pushed through a divided Congress.
But a steady stream of killings that plagued his predecessor's term continues, and the deepening crisis in Michoacan is beginning to cast doubt on his ability to maintain order. Drug trafficking gangs have been waging battles over trafficking routes for the last decade.
(Excerpt) Read more at uk.reuters.com ...
Lay off the cartels or the politicians don’t get this month’s payola.
Screw the federales guys.
Trust the federales.
They’ll all be dead in a week. Same thing would happen here.
Bad for business!
Gotta get those “economic reforms” passed.
If they trust the army, they’ll be dead in short order.
From what I’ve heard, the vigilantes are kicking butt.
They’ve been going strong for a while and appear to be gaining steam.
“The price of FREEDOM is Eternal Vigilance”.
Since the Government is in bed with the Cartels, this is what they shall reap.
That can be said for our very own U.S. Government.
Lay with dogs and don’t be surprised to find yourself covered in fleas.
This can only resolved by clean cash.... Whodda thunk that?
if they were serious they’d join the vigilante forces and deal with the cartel.
Mahn, choo doan wanna mase weet are pahrtners! Leeb dem lone!
Translation:
Stop your advance or the Government will help the cartels survive.
They would be best served to regroup and grow their forces all across the country to take on both the Cartels and eventually their own corrupt government, IMO.
Of course, I advocate the same here, but even though most will find any excuse not to fight, perhaps enough would be willing to sacrifice everything for a chance to set things right in this country once again before it’s truly too late.
> Lay off the cartels or the politicians don’t get this month’s payola.
Nail on the head.
Sounds like the vigilantes may be a little too effective. So the government needs to take over and contain the violence to insure no more cartel members are needlessly killed.
> “The price of FREEDOM is Eternal Vigilance”.
Since the Government is in bed with the Cartels, this is what they shall reap.
That can be said for our very own U.S. Government.
Lay with dogs and don’t be surprised to find yourself covered in fleas.
Our problem is we have dog pounds everywhere
> Sounds like the vigilantes may be a little too effective. So the government needs to take over and contain the violence to insure no more cartel members are needlessly killed.
LOL
Vigilantes are taking matters into their own hands to root out corruption? I guess Mexicans really ARE willing to do the jobs Americans won’t.
This raises two important issues in the US.
The first is gun control, where the arguments for or against gun liberty are generally over either self-defense or to overthrow a tyrannical government.
But this shows a third scenario: under a supposedly intensive gun control regime, the people have been forced to take up *illegal* arms as vigilantes against organized crime organizations the government is incapable of stopping, or unwilling to stop.
The other thing is vigilantism. In the US, the government, academia and the media all damn vigilantism up one side and down the other as racist, criminal, and unjust. But here is an excellent case of vigilantism doing what it is supposed to do: taking the place of an ineffectual and corrupt government, and protecting the people by driving out the organized criminals.
It is vital that Americans are aware of this, because we are always close to being in a similar situation. Not just guns for self-defense, or the idea of somehow overthrowing a corrupt and decadent federal government; but as the means to take care of ourselves against criminal organizations, gangsters and mafias.
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